Quis Rerum Divinarum Heres Sit

Why should I speak of Isaac? Why of Jacob? For these also are manifestly found to have been prophets by many other circumstances, and especially by their addresses to their children. For the annunciation, "Assemble yourselves together, that I may tell you what shall happen to you in the last days" [*](Genesis xlix. 2. ) was the expression of a man possessed by inspiration; for the knowledge of the future is not appropriate to, or natural to, man.

What shall we say of Moses? is he not celebrated everywhere as a prophet? For the scripture says, "If there shall be among you a prophet of the Lord, I will make myself known unto him in a vision," [*](Numbers xii. 6, ) but to Moses God appeared in his actual appearance and not by a riddle. And again we read, "There arose not any more any prophet like unto Moses, whom the Lord knew face to face." [*](Deuteronomy xxxiv. 10. )

Very admirably, therefore, does the historian here point out, that Abraham was under the influence of inspiration when he says that, "About the setting of the sun a trance fell upon him." [*](Genesis xx. 7. ) [*](Numbers xii. 6, ) [*](Genesis xlix. 2. ) [*](Deuteronomy xxxiv. 10. )

As long therefore as our mind still shines around and hovers around, pouring as it were a noontide light into the whole soul, we, being masters of ourselves, are not possessed by any extraneous influence; but when it approaches its setting, then, as is natural, a trance, which proceeds from inspiration, takes violent hold of us, and madness seizes upon us, for when the divine light shines the human light sets, and when the divine light sets this other rises and shines,

and this very frequently happens to the race of prophets; for the mind that is in us is removed from its place at the arrival of the divine Spirit, but is again restored to its previous habitation when that Spirit departs, for it is contrary to holy law for what is mortal to dwell with what is immortal. On this account the setting of our reason, and the darkness which surrounds it, causes a trance and a heaven-inflicted madness.

After that the historian connects with his preceding account what follows in consistency with it, saying, "And it was said to Abraham"—for in real truth the prophet, even when he appears to be speaking, is silent, and another being is employing his vocal organs, his mouth and tongue, for the explanation of what things he chooses; and operating on these organs by some invisible and very skilful act, he makes them utter a sweet and harmonious sound, full of every kind of melody.

And it is well to hear what the things are which are thus said to have been predicted to Abraham. In the first place, that God does not grant to the man who loves virtue to dwell in the body as in his own native land, but only to sojourn in it as in a foreign country. "For knowing," says the scripture, "thou shalt know that thy seed shall be sojourners in a land which is not theirs." [*](Genesis xv. 13 ) But the district of the body is akin to every bad man, and in it he is desirous to abide as a dweller, not as a sojourner.

Accordingly, these words contain this as one lesson; another is, that the things which bring [*](Genesis xv. 13 )

And this slavery lasts four hundred years in accordance with the powers of the four passions. For when pleasure rules, the mind is elated and puffed up, being carried away by empty vanity. Again, when appetite gets the upper hand, a desire for absent things is engendered, which suspends the mind upon unaccomplished hopes, as if in a halter; for then the mind is always thirsting and yet is unable to drink, enduring the punishment of Tantalus.

Again, when under the influence of grief, the mind is tortured and contracted, like trees the leaves of which are falling off and withering; for all its flourishing and nutritious particles are dried up. Also, when fire obtains the supremacy, no one any longer chooses to remain, but betakes to flight and running away, thinking that this is the only way in which he can be saved. For appetite, having an attractive power even if the object which is desired retreats, compels one to pursue it; and fear, on the other hand, causing alienation, separates one from it, and makes one remove to a distance from what is presented to one’s view.

But the supremacy of these different passions before mentioned inflicts terrible slavery on those who are ruled over by them, until God, the umpire and judge of all things, separates that which is ill treated from that which is inflicting ill treatment, and delivers the former and blesses it with perfect freedom, and inflicts upon the other a retribution for the wickedness which it has committed.

For we read in the next verse, "And the nation to which they shall be slaves I will judge, and after that they shall go forth with great substance." [*]( Genesis xv. 14. ) For it is inevitable that a mortal man must obey the nature of the passions, and that a man who has been born must endure the fate which is allotted to him as appropriate; but it is the will of God to lighten the evils which are planted contemporaneously with our birth.

So that even if we at the beginning suffer such evils as are properly assigned to us, become slaves of cruel masters, and if God also performs what is his peculiar work, proclaiming emancipation and freedom to [*]( Genesis xv. 14. )

And what is this? When the mind having come down from above the heaven becomes entangled in the necessities of the body, then, although it is not allured by any of these, still, like a eunuch or impotent person, it embraces pleasant evils. But if it remains in its own nature, then, being truly a man, it resists and discards them instead of being overthrown by them, being initiated in all the parts of complete encyclical learning; from which it derives a desire for contemplation, and acquires temperance and patience, very vigorous virtues, leaving its former abode, and finding a means of return back to its own country, and bringing with it all the lessons of instruction, which are here called supplies for the journey.

Having said this much on these subjects, the historian proceeds: "And thou shalt depart to thy fathers, having lived in peace, in a good old age." [*](Genesis xv. 15. ) Therefore we, who are imperfect, are made war upon, and we become slaves, and only with difficulty do we find any relief from the dangers which impend over us. But the perfect race, exempt from slavery and free from the perils of war, is bred up in peace and the firmest freedom.

And there is a particular lesson to be learnt from his representing the good man not as dying but departing, in order to show that the race of the soul, which is completely purified, cannot be extinguished and cannot die, but only departs in the way of migration from this earth to heaven, not undergoing that dissolution and destruction which death appears to bring with it.

And after the words, "Thou shalt depart," he adds, "to thy fathers." It is here worth while to consider what kind of fathers is meant; for God can never mean those who had passed their lives in the country of the Chaldaeans, among whom alone he had lived as being his relations, because he had been commanded by a sacred oracle to depart from those who were his kinsmen by blood. For, says the historian, "The Lord said unto Abraham, Depart from out of thy land, and from thy kindred, and from thy father’s house, to a land which I will show thee; and I will [*](Genesis xv. 15. )

For how can it be reasonable for him who was once been removed from his abode by the interference of Divine Providence, to return and dwell again in the same place? And how could it be reasonable for one who was about to be the leader of a new nation and of another race to be again assigned to his ancient one? For God would never have given to him a new character, and a new nation and family, if he had not wholly and entirely separated him from his ancient one.

For that man is truly a chief of a nation and ruler of a family, from whom, as from a root, sprang that branch so fond of investigating and contemplating the affairs of our nature, by name Israel, since an express command has been given "to remove the old things from before the face of those which are new." [*](Leviticus xxvi. 10 ) For where is any longer the use of investigations into antiquity, and ancient, and long-established customs, to those in whom on a sudden, when they have no such expectation, God rains all kinds of new blessings in a mass?

Therefore, when he says "fathers," he means not those whose souls have departed from them, and who are buried in the tombs of the land of Chaldea; but, as some say, the sun, and the moon, and the other stars; for some affirm that it is owing to these bodies that the nature of all the things in the world has its existence. But as some other persons think he means the archetypal ideas, those models of these things which are perceptible by the outward senses and visible; which models, however, are only perceptible by the intellect and invisible; and that it is to these that the mind of the wise man emigrates.